The use of digital media and services to facilitate communication, advertising, and information distribution has evolved significantly in the past few decades in many respects: the volume and granularity of information available at any time over the Internet and other networks, the mass adoption and use of electronic devices and interfaces, particularly small portable devices, used to request, acquire, and view such information, and the volume of communications of all types—consumer, business, governmental, etc. —but especially short, abbreviated messages such as SMS and other text messages.
In addition to exponential growth of online digital information products and services, including search, the new and rapidly evolving digital ecosystem has created numerous new electronic person to person(s) and application to person(s) communications media, including email, SMS, MMS, and instant messaging, social networking, digital chat rooms and other types of typed or printed electronic communications. These services, e.g., Twitter, generate trillions of communications, including short text messages and/or images in both one to one and one to many distribution platforms. One of the new characteristics of SMS and other messaging, whether through Twitter or otherwise, is the proliferation of abbreviations, keywords, shortened URL addresses, shortcodes, and other techniques (collectively “Shortcodes”) used to reference and/or otherwise communicate through these services with a minimum number of characters.
Another important technology development is the ability to quickly determine, utilize, store, communicate, and retrieve very precise location information that is being used in a new category of goods and services generally referred to as location-based services (“LBS”). LBS have rapidly evolved into a new industry, perhaps several new industries, enabling numerous and varied LBS products, applications, and services through numerous types of electronic devices (e.g., mobile phones, in-vehicle and personal navigation devices (PNDs), portable digital media players, etc.) as well as through online and mobile internet websites, applications, services, and media. Many of these devices and services visually display maps, content, and related information, including advertising, through various videos, images, text, icons, names, etc. A growing and now common characteristic of many of these devices is an emphasis on small size and portability, resulting in smaller screen sizes, keypads, keyboards, and other input mechanisms, thereby creating a premium for highly efficient methods of identifying, displaying, selecting, communicating, inputting information, and/or otherwise interacting with these devices.
Despite the proliferation and growth of LBS services delivered through digital devices and electronic communications, printed and other visual materials and imagery remain as significant media to display location-based information. Printed materials may include paper maps, handouts, brochures, books, newspapers, magazines, business cards, flyers, billboards, posters, etc. There is a significant need to continue to utilize such materials and imagery as well as to provide methods and solutions that facilitate the converging interactive use of both print and digital media by users, as well as the migration of users from traditional print media to digital media.
Today, there are numerous LBS services delivered over hundreds of platforms and devices, all of which typically include some form of user interface to interact with the device, imagery, and information. One of the problems associated with the reduction in size of devices and the increase in capabilities is the difficulty of presenting more and more information on these smaller devices such as mobile phones, PNDs, connected watches and jewelry, and other devices. This reduction in size of screens and displays presents challenges that are exacerbated by the substantial increase in the amount of information that is available to end users through LBS and other services, thereby making it desirable to utilize icons, images, abbreviations, Shortcodes, and other techniques that are smaller yet easily understandable and usable by viewers.
While voice, bar code readers and other alternative communication methodologies are available in some of these devices, it would appear that the most prevalent form of input and output for all LBS services remains the physical input of numbers, letters, the selections of buttons, links, etc. through various types of keypads, keyboards, or other physical interfaces. While many devices have touch screens, there is often still a need for displaying text on those screens, and there is typically an ongoing need for entering text, typing, or otherwise selecting or inputting words, letters, numbers, names, and abbreviations through keypads. This can be evidenced by the presence, in virtually all devices that utilize touch screens for user input, of digitized keypads or keyboards to facilitate traditional user input. Even where voice and other interfaces are available for input or output, there is still a need for features, systems, and methods that facilitate the parsing and interpretation of such input and output and expedite the brevity and efficacy of the communication to minimize errors resulting from background noise, inefficiency in voice recognition systems, language, dialects and accent obstacles, etc. In many cases, providers or users elect visual and physical input and output of various types, e.g., text, images, lists, etc., despite the presence of more and more functional voice interfaces for convenience (e.g., interaction in a crowded and/or noisy location) or because of less obvious but nevertheless meaningful obstacles associated with voice services such as basic and more complex human auditory recognition, memory, and association obstacles. One may casually observe consumers interacting with mobile phones to quickly learn that a substantial and growing portion of mobile phone usage and interaction today is with the display and keypad rather than voice.
Even though various dedicated devices and services may efficiently handle the visual and input/output communications needs in a closed interaction loop exclusively between the devices and the users of such devices and services, that efficiency may be greatly reduced when a user wants to write down, speak, or otherwise communicate such information to others and/or the user or another user wants to utilize such information with other devices and services. Therefore, in many cases input/output must be interoperable across various materials, devices, images and services.
There are numerous alphabets, characters, format approaches, languages, and other differences and barriers to communication and interoperability that may need to be eliminated or minimized. Sources estimate that worldwide there are over six thousand (6,000) languages, dozens of alphabets and scripts, over one hundred twenty (120) different postal address formats and over forty (40) personal name formats.